UCL: Slot warns Liverpool ‘no chance’ against PSG if focus slips—amid Van Dijk rift
Arne Slot has warned his Liverpool side they have no chance against Paris Saint-Germain unless they remain focused for the full 90 minutes—while simultaneously downplaying Virgil van Dijk’s claims that the team “gave up” last weekend.
Captain Van Dijk was scathing in his criticism of his teammates following Saturday’s 4-0 capitulation against Manchester City in the FA Cup quarter-final. “You shouldn’t give up, and that’s maybe, at a certain point, what happened,” Van Dijk remarked after the Reds suffered their 15th defeat of a difficult season.
Liverpool now face the daunting task of bouncing back against European champions PSG in the Champions League quarter-final first leg in the French capital on Wednesday.
Slot has used his pre-match briefing to warn his players that another collapse would be fatal to their European ambitions.
“I didn’t see players giving up, but I also think it is good from a captain that he has a strong and firm reaction,” Slot said at a news conference in Paris on Tuesday. “This year we have been quite experienced in terms of negativity. This was a big one because it was an [FA Cup] quarter-final. It was a big loss against our rivals.”
Liverpool’s weekend nightmare saw them concede four goals in a devastating 20-minute spell bridging either side of half-time. Slot was blunt about the consequences of repeating those mistakes against the French giants.
“I can tell you if we have the 20 minutes we had at City tomorrow evening here, we will again concede four goals,” Slot added. “So it is a challenge for us to be from the first to the last second at the level we were at in the first 35 minutes [against City].”
